Thin Skin, Big Internet

Arguably the funniest online poll in history is when the Internet collectively decided to name a $200 million dollar research ship Boaty McBoatface in a #NameOurShip campaign conducted by a British government agency. Now the term McBoatfacing is used as a sort of shorthand for letting the internet decide things for you.

I was thinking of Boaty McBoatface when I ran a poll last week on how often this newsletter should come out. It was the first time in my 15 or so years of being online that I directly asked people to weigh in on a venture I was doing. It was also my first foray into building in public.

Building in public is a term people on the Internet use to discuss starting entrepreneurial ventures - newsletters, companies, podcasts - online, and then sharing the ups and the downs of the journey publicly, usually on social media. Asking people how often Beck on Tech should come out is a form of building in public.

I have always rejected building in public, mostly because I have thin skin. Thin skin is a blessing in real life, but it’s a curse online. A few years ago I was on a podcast about moving across the country for Techstars for my startup. In the interview I mentioned my childcare arrangements. The arrangements had happened a full three years before the podcast recording and we didn’t even live in the same state anymore or have the same childcare arrangement, and I still could NOT handle it when people were critical of those choices in the comments of the podcast. Even now, six years later, I sometimes think maybe I really messed that childcare decision up. Even though everyone thrived, even though the 12 weeks at Techstars were over in a flash, and even though the nanny became a lifelong friend who voted in the Beck on Tech poll! Even now I think about that childcare choice on occasion, and I never gave it a second thought for one moment before those podcast comments.

So anyway, when I saw the Beck on Tech poll results coming in about newsletter cadence, I felt a little blue. It instantly reminded me that I have thin skin and I know it and I should act accordingly. I wanted everyone to say “omg Molly, we love this newsletter - send it… three… no, six… no, nine times a day!”

Obviously that is unrealistic, for one thousand reasons. One being that no one wants that many newsletters. I know that! I don’t either! And another being that this newsletter is free and I have a job and a startup and four kids and I can’t be doing a million things for no money just because I like doing them. But still! It’s harder when it’s your newsletter.

So I was talking to my friend Rachel about how “the winner of the poll is to have Beck on Tech come out once a week….maybe I should do something else so I can still write every day?” and she pointed out that wasn’t really the true winner. The poll gave three choices: once a week, three times a week, or daily. Combined, the multiple-times-a-week votes actually beat the once-a-week option. I hadn’t considered that data point until Rachel pointed it out. Something to ponder.

At the end of the day, I have chosen to write publicly, instead of in a journal, and that means delivering my writing in a way and on a cadence that people want to read. And maybe every week day is TOO much! I know everyone is so busy. But I also know for sure that, for me as a writer, I need to write daily. I need the deadlines. I need the SNL Time. If I say I will do it three times a week, I will do it never.

And that’s what hard’s about building in public, even in a very minor way… I don’t really have the answers yet. I need to think more what to do next.

So for this week, I am going to send the newsletter all five days. Next week, I’ll have a new plan and I’ll share it next Monday.

Let’s see where this Boaty sails to. Hopefully not the land of Thin Skin!

-Molly Beck